It was not racially various, but ethnically, religiously, socioeconomically it was very much integrated, and that was helpful. Growing up, I worked at my father’s truck stop, and I was around a wide range of people. My voice is very distinctive, and I think that has been very helpful to me. You get a warm feeling, but nobody notices.” He said, “These people are like pissing down your leg in a dark suit. There’s a great quote from Lyndon Johnson about a group of people he thought were all talk and no action. The more committed you are to your ideals, the more obligated you are to be pragmatic about implementing them. Things went bad for him when he took the vice presidency, but in the Fifties and Sixties he was an extraordinarily important force for getting liberal ideas implemented. He was the model of the pragmatic zealot. He organized the “Dump Johnson” movement in ’67 when a lot of people, myself included, told him it wasn’t going to work. You have to send me money to defend myself.” Also, when you’re in office and people say bad things about you, you can raise money off it: “Look what they’re saying about me. He said, “Just remember, at any given moment you are much more focused on you than almost anybody else is.” So don’t overreact to criticism in or out of the press. It was from the attorney general of Massachusetts, Francis X. John Shelby Spong, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.What’s the best advice you ever received? 23219 or at To plant Memorial Trees in memory of The Rt. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Richmond (815 East Grace Street, Richmond, Va. This service will also be live-streamed at Memorial donations may be sent to the John Shelby Spong Lectureship at St. Peter’s, Morristown will be held on October 15, 2021, at 11:00 am. This service will also be live-streamed at The service at St. Masks will be required for in-person attendance. Paul’s, Richmond will be held on September 30, 2021, at 2:00 pm. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Morristown, N.J. Separate funeral services will be held at St. (Scott) and their six grandchildren, Katharine Shelby Catlett, M.D., John Baldwin Catlett III, John Lanier Hylton, Lydia Ann Hylton, Colin David Barney and Katherine Barney. He is survived by his wife, Christine Mary Spong, who also served as his editor their five children, Ellen Elizabeth Spong (Augustus Charles Epps, Jr.), Mary Katharine Spong (John Baldwin Catlett, Jr.), Jaquelin Ketner Spong, Brian Yancy Barney (Julieann) and Rachel Elizabeth Carter, M.D. ![]() His articles have been published in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Times of London and others. He is the author of 26 books, which have sold over 2,000,000 copies and they have been translated into multiple languages. He was featured on CBS’s Sixty Minutes with Leslie Stahl. Well-known in radio and television circles, Bishop Spong appeared on such diverse programs as Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, The O’Reilly Factor with Bill O’Reilly, Late Night with Tom Snyder, Good Morning America with Charles Gibson, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Phil Donahue Show and NPR radio with both Diane Rehm and Terry Gross. Frank Eakin, led a citywide Jewish-Christian dialogue. Spong, together with Rabbi Jack Daniel Spiro and the University of Richmond’s Department of Religion Chair, Dr. That ordination led to the church’s willingness to bless committed gay unions. On December 16, 1989, he ordained to the priesthood the first openly gay man living in a publicly acknowledged committed relationship. ![]() ![]() Elizabeth Canham, long before the Church of England was willing to ordain women. He ordained to the priesthood the first English woman, the Rev. ![]() He taught at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA Drew University, Madison, NJ Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA The Pacific School of Religion Berkeley, CA the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA and at Trinity College at the University of Toronto.īishop Spong was one of Desmond Tutu’s co-consecrators in 1976. He was named the Quatercentenary Scholar at Cambridge University (Emmanuel College) in 1992 and the William Belden Noble Lecturer at Harvard University in 2000. He studied at major centers of Christian scholarship including Union Theological Seminary in New York, Yale Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School and the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh. In 1976 he was elected VIII Bishop of Newark, where he served for 24 years.Ī deeply committed Christian, he insisted that he must also speak as an informed citizen of the 21st century. Joseph’s, Durham, and Calvary Parish, Tarboro) and in Virginia (St. He was 90 years old.īishop Spong was ordained to the priesthood in 1955 and served for 20 years as a priest in Episcopal churches in North Carolina (St. John Shelby Spong, one of America’s best-known spokespersons for an open, scholarly and inclusive Christianity, died Sunday, September 12, 2021, at his home in Richmond.
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